Presentation of the city

Cesson-Sévigné is a city of 16,000 inhabitants,
located on the river Vilaine, a few kilometers east of Rennes, The
Breton name of the city is Saozon-Sevigneg. The science and
technology park Atalante is partially located in
Cesson-Sévigné. Its main area of research is
telecommunications.

The city is named after two feudal families mentioned for the
first time in the XIth century. The official name of
Cesson-Sévigné was acknowledged in 1921.

In 1644, Henri de Sévigné married Marie de
Rabutin-Chantal (1629-1696), later famous as Madame la Marquise de
Sévigné. Henri died seven years later in a duel and
Madame de Sévigné never married again. Her beloved
daughter Françoise-Marguerite married in 1669 Count de
Grignan, Leutenant-General of Provence,
and moved with him to Provence two years later. Between 1671 and
1696, Madame de Sévigné wrote more than 1,500 letters,
mostly to her daughter. She wrote the same way she spoke, that is
with a very lively style. Her letters were a mixture of Court gossip
columns, confidences, fears, jokes and literary criticism. She spent
only a limited part of her life in the court of
Versailles, where she was isolated due to
her unfailing support to Surintendant Fouquet, Louis XIV's rival and
victim. However, her letters give a very interesting picture of the
ordinary life in the Court (as opposed to the other great memorialist
of that time, Saint-Simon, who was much more interested in the
corridors of power). Madame de Sévigné's letters became
rapidly popular and were rapidly disseminated everywhere, some of
them receiving a nickname related to their content.

Ivan Sache, 20 October 2002

Description of the flag

The flag of Cesson-Sévigné is a square white field
with the municipal coat of arms in the middle, flanked by four ermine
spots. The name of the city is written below the shield.
The municipal arms of Cesson-Sévigné are those of
Roland de Cucé (1346), another local feudal lord.